About Me

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Last saturday I went to Hobby Forge for the March Monster Madness (and the free burger hahah) with my Cauldron of Blood. At first, I wanted to bring my Dark Elf for a fantasy session since we will be having a fantasy tournament in two weeks time. But with no time to pack my fantasy stuffs (painting the Cauldron took all the time I had since the night before), I just grabbed my Raven Guard box and went off to the Hobby Forge. Upon arrival, I met Joe Soon, the Tau guy I fought last week and we had a game.

My list were about the same as before, but with Kayvaan Shrike instead of the Typhoon Speeders.

With such a small number of troops. It wouldn't be much trouble if we were to play objective based mission. But my opponent rolled the worst possible mission to go against such list -- Purge The Alien!!!

Seriously... I had no chance at all against such list in this kind of mission. But to hell with it, I now wanna see just how far I can push the enemy. Some more I made it my personal mission to survive until turn 5. If the enemy failed to wipe out my Raven Guard by turn 5, then it would be a morale victory equal to winning for me. Now to see how many Riptide could my marines kill before they got TAed :lol:

Deploy:
- Raven Guard deployed on my left quarter.
- Tau deployed on their left quarter, faaaar away from my marines. (see picture in TURN 1)
- Shrike and Assault Squad 1 infiltrated on my right, right across the enemy.
- Both my Rhinos scouted towards the enemy, circling a large ruin in the centre.

TURN 1

Enemy failed to seize the initiative. My Drop Pod came down right in front of enemy troops. Dreadnought disembarked, survived the incoming interceptor shots and burned 4 Pathfinders, claiming First Blood for the Raven Guard.

The rest of my army moved as fast as possible to close the gap between them and the enemy.

TURN 2
Storm Raven came in, survived all interceptor shots and shot the Riptide 3, scoring some wounds.
Dread and Drop Pod targeted the 2 Firewarriors unit on top the ruin, killing 6 in one unit and 2 from the other one.
Tactical Squad 1 advanced slowly while taking a shot at the Crisis Suits team. They succesfully took out 2 out of the 3 man team.

Kayvaan Shrike and the lone Veteran Sargent easily close the gap to assault a 4 man Pathfinder team.
The Centurions continued their slow walk towards the enemy line.

Enemy shot back and wrecked the Rhino bearing Tactical Squad 2. This time they also managed to wreck the Dreadnought.
Further attempt at taking out the Storm Raven failed so they changed their focus to Shrike, easily killing the Shadow Captain and the Veteran Sargent.

TURN 3

Storm Raven moved forward, leaving the wounded Riptide 3 (1 wound left) for the Tactical Squad 2. It targeted Riptide 4 causing two wounds.
The Tactical Squad 2 rapid fired Riptide 3, hit twice with the plasmagun but failed to cause any wound. (Damn! I was so confident they could bring it down this turn) It easily shrugged off wounds from the HOLY bolters.
The Chapter Master and Assault Squad 2 destroyed the 4 Firewarriors atop the ruin.
Tactical Squad 1 killed the last guy from the other Firewarrior unit at long range.

With me failing to take out Riptide 3, the enemy had more than enough shots to wipe out Tactical Squad 2 in a single shooting phase. Not only that, they also killed 8 marines from Assault Squad 2 before assaulting the Chapter Master.

Farsight cut down the last 2 marines while the Chapter Master fought Riptide 1 in a challenge where they both caused a wound to each other.

TURN 4

Storm Raven hovered backwards and shot Riptide 2, causing a wound. Tactical Squad one tried to bring down Riptide 4 (1 wound left) with plasmagun, the shot hit but failed to wound it (No luck with plasmagun today)
Centurions finally got into range and killed Riptide 3 with the Gravcannons.
The fight between Chapter Master and Riptide continued in a draw with no wound. The large unit performed Hit and Run 9 inches towards the Centurions.

On enemy turn, The big unit decided to continue the fight against my Chapter Master. They poured many shots to him (causing 1 wound) followed by a charge. This time the Chapter Master fought the EarthTide since Riptide 1 failed to overcharge it's Shield. The Chapter Master suffered another wound, hit back and caused a wound to the EarthTide but was denied by a Feel No Pain roll.
Riptide 2 tried to bring down my Storm Raven with shooting but achieved one glance only. It then assaulted and wrecked it with Smash Attacks.

TURN 5

Centurions killed Riptide 2.
Tactical 1 targeted Riptide 4 for the second time, but still the plasmagun failed to wound.
The fight between Chapter Master and EarthTide continued with no wound caused. The opponent performed another Hit and Run move, but this time towards the Tactical Squad 1.

The lone Crisis Suit and and Riptide 4 killed my Chapter Master with shooting.
Don't remember what shot the Drop Pod, but it was wrecked in this turn.
EarthTide targeted the Centurions with overcharged Heavy Burst Cannon, killing one.
Farsight lead his team to hunt down Tactical Squad 1.They killed 6 with shooting, and the remaining 4 in the assault phase.

Centurions easily get into range and killed Riptide 4. With only 4 wounds left on table, this might be the turn I got TAed.

The Enemy tried to wipe out the Centurions, but the Crisis Suit were out of range, and the EarthTide had no Line of Sight to them. So they only managed to cause another kill. leaving me with one Centurion by the end of the turn.

The Tau list was really strong. I didn't mention in the battle report, but the enemy failed about 6-7 overcharge roll, Gets Hot!, armour saves, low penetration roll and more. But still ended as the winner. With such an army, you don't have to worry about making a mistake, as the army can either recover easily from that mistake or simply ignore the mistake altogether.

I lost the game, but I was seriously satisfied with how my Raven Guard performed. The lost was well within my expectation (and my guess... everyone who watched since we did attract quite a few of spectators). But I had fun. My Raven Guard fought bravely, killed 3 Riptides, wounded the two that remained in the game, and was not TAed. Yup, it was a fine game if you ask me :-)

Before the game began, both Rhinos scouted 12 inches forward. Then the Catachan attempted to seize the initiative, but failed.

TURN 1

Drop Pod deepstriked with minimal scatter, putting the Dreadnought within 12 of the Basilisk. The Dread shot it with the Multimelta, hit, but I rolled 3 on 2D6 for armor penetration. The rest of the army moved forward, but stays 36 inches away from the Basilisk to take advantage of the Night Fight.

Vet 2 circled around the Dreadnought and wrecked it with several shots to the rear armour. Basilisk shot the front Rhino, immobilising it.

TURN 2
Storm Raven didn't came (Note : this is okay result since I will need it to counter the Vendettas)

4 Combat Squads disembarked from the Rhinos. Supported by the Deathwind Launcher from Drop Pod, and Storm Bolters from the Rhinos, they wipedout Vet 1 and killed several in Vet 2.

Chapter Master called Orbital Bombardment to take out the Basilisk. The shot scored a penetrating hit and I rolled 3 for result, which turned into immobilised due to the shot being AP1. Typhoon Speeder followed through with 4 Krak Missiles and destroyed it.
(Note : back home only I remembered that Basilisk was open-topped vehicles. Which means that the Orbital Bombardment would have actually destroyed it).

The Assault Squad 2 moved forward to support the Tacticals.

With an officer giving them +1 to reserves, all the Catachan's air support came in on time. Vedetta Squadron 1 killed 6 marines from Assault Squad 2 while Vendetta Squadron 2 annihilated the Typhoon Speeders.

The Valkyries targeted Tactical 1(b) with 4 S4 large blast and numerous support weapons, causing 9 wounds to Tactical 1(b), 4 wounds to Tactical 2(b) and 2 wounds to Tactical 2(a). However my armor saves were superbly good here and each squad suffered only 1 casualty.

On the ground, his Veteran unit 3 shot plasmaguns at Tactical 1(a) and killed 3.

Tactical 2(a) and 2(b), reembarked their Rhino and make a move towards Vet 3 by circling the Drop Pod. Tactical 1(a) tried their luck, snapfiring the closest Vendetta Squadron but achieved nothing. Tactical 1(b), Deathwind Launcher and Storm Bolters from the Rhinos reduced Veteran Squad 3 to just 4 guys, and pinned (they choose to go to ground) the Veteran Squad 2.

Assault Squad 2 moved closer and tried to assault Vet 2, but failed to roll anything higher than 4 inches when assaulting through the difficult ground.

Chapter Master and Assault Squad 1 moved forward.

Came enemy turn, both Vendetta Squadrons flew out into ongoing reserve to counter my Storm Raven.

The Valkyries hovered backwards, safely out of my Chapter Master assault range. They shot the Tactical 1(b), causing 8 wounds but none got through the 3+ armour. Then Vet 2 (Snapfiring) and Vet 3 shot the same unit and killed 2 hahaha.

TURN 4

Storm Raven came in and targeted Valkyries but failed to cause anything.
(Note : I knew it wouldn't survive the next turn, but decided to keep the Centurions inside because at that moment I mistaken the Crash and Burn result to be S6 AP-. Not something that my Centurions should worry about)

Having no range for assault, I pulled the Chapter Master and Assault Squad 1 backwards to guard the 3 objectives in my deployment zone. I sent Assault Squad 2 to assault Vet 3. They lose one guy from overwatch and the assault failed.

The rest of my army shot at Vet 2 (2 guys left), but the Catachans showed us why they are the best at jungle fighting, surviving through all that shots, coming from all angle.

The Vendettas came in from reserves. One squadron destroyed the Storm Raven in the air with 6 TL-Lascannons. The explosion instakilled 2 Centurions, and the lone survivor were later killed by 6 TL-Lascannon from the 2nd Vendetta Squadron.
(Note : It was now that I realized my mistake, the Crash and Burn causes S10 hits with no armour saves to passengers, not S6! The S6 was for damage from falling debris. What a silly mistake.)

The Valkyries shot my Tacticals but didn't kill a single model.

TURN 5

This could be the last turn, so all Tacticals disembarked to capture the objectives. Chapter Master and Assault Squad 1 moved further backwards to prevent the Catachan from getting close to the objectives in my deployment zone.

All bolter and Deathwind Launcher focused on the remaining 2 guys from Vet 2, but again they survived like Rambo in The First Blood.

Assault Squad 2 destroyed Vet 3 in assault.

Colonel Straken and his unit disembarked from the Valkyrie into the forest. From the Vendettas 1, Veteran Squad 4 disembarked behind the immobilised Rhino. The other Vendetta Squadron flew across the table.

This time the Catachan's shooting was devastating. Gone was my spectacular armour saves and the IG successfully wipedout all 4 Tactical Squads in this shooting phase.

Without anymore troops, there's nothing I can do to stop the Catachans from winning since they held 3 VPs (First Blood, 2 Heavies) already against my 1 VP (Linebreaker), but we kept on playing.

TURN 6

I tank-shocked a Rhino 12 inches into Vet 2 causing them to flee. The path went straight into Straken and his boys but did nothing since they are fearless.

(Note: I should have stopped the tank-shock at 6 inches only. That way Straken boys would be perfect target for my Deathwind Launcher. Another mistake.)

Deathwind Launcher shot the Vet 4 and killed 4 guys including 3 guys with special weapons. The rest of were later destroyed by the Chapter Master and Assault Squad 1, coming from 10 inches away.

Since Vet 2 required Insane Courage to rally, Assault Squad 2 ignored them and moved to assault Straken. They die to overwatch fire.

To my surprise, Collonel Straken can force the Vet 2 to rally with the "Get Back To Combat" order or something. They rallied and proceed to capture the objective nearby. Veteran Squad 5 disembarked from Vendettas 2, into the woods to capture the same objective.

With nothing else on table, the Catachans now focused on the Chapter Master and Assault Squad 1. All that shots killed 9 Assault Marines and wounded the Chapter Master once.

FIIIGHT!!

Straken led his unit to assault the Chapter Master. At initiative 3, they wounded the Chapter Master twice and killed the Assault Veteran Sargeant. Chapter Master fought back with 4 attacks but not a single blow hit the enemy. All that wounds must have reach some vital organs, affecting his swing. Suddenly a Priest came from the back and hit him with the Eviscerator. The attack got through the Eternal Shield and killed the Raven Guard Chapter Master.

With that the game ended.

RESULT : Catachan WON by 5 Victory Points to Raven Guard 0. With not a single infantry left alive, We can say the Catachans even succesfully TAed my Raven Guard forces! Wow!

POST GAME ASSESMENT:
The Air Cavalry was certainly good. My list had no means to handle so many Flyers, and so I focused on killing the Veterans. The hard part was keeping my men alive untill turn 5 when the IG would begin to make their move towards the objective. I think I would have better chance if I were to play my Shrike+Cypher (Shadows of The Fallen?) list with Stealth, Shrouded and Infiltrate to take advantage with.

Another difficulty was to keep up with the speed of the Flyers. They are fast and can easily cover large ground to suddenly drop their passengers on objectives at the other side of the table. So the best approach to prevent this from happening is to keep the objectives close together. That would cancel the advantage of such mobility, and keeps the objectives within charging distance of my jumpacks. In this game I made mistakes by putting 3 objectives on my line, forcing me to split my forces in order to guard the objectives. Now I knew better.

I really missed Shrike in this game. My alpha strike felt lacking without him and 10 Jumpackers infiltrating somewhere. Maybe I should put him back in the list, replacing the fragile (though certainly useful) Typhoon Speeder.

The Deathwind Launcher works really great in this game, killing Veterans many times over the 15 points I spent on it.

In the end, my Raven Guard was totally butchered this time. I did several mistakes in the game, the biggest mistake cost me 2 heavy supports casualty in a single shooting phase. This is one of the game where even a single mistake would cost me dearly compared to my opponent. Some more my opponent is a veteran with many tricks under his sleeves. I should be extra careful but went the other way instead hahaha.

But what a fun game it was thanks to the funny moments we had such as the invincible Veteran Squad 2 that refused to die and my funky armour saves (8 wounds - 1 dead, 4 wounds - 1 dead, 2 wounds - 1 dead, 1 wounds also 1 dead :lol:) in the first four turns. Thanks to my opponent, Bro Lan a.k.a Spunkybass for the fun game.

We use preset table so the ADL was deployed after we choose table sides, adjusting the terrain a bit to fit the 3 inches minimum requirement. Then I deployed the 2nd Assault Squad in the middle of my deployment zone. The rest would infiltrate or came in from reserves.

Tyranids deploy:

Everything deployed on table in a horde. Raveners and Carnifexes lead the way. Tyrants, Crone, and Tervigon at the centre of the horde.

Infiltrators :

1st Sniper squad deployed in a forest, and the other behind the ADL to man the Quadgun. Cypher infiltrated with Grav-Centurions some 18 inches from the Ravener brood 1. They are tasked to take out the Tyrant at all cost. Shrike and 1st Assault Squad infiltrated behind them.

First Turn

Tyranids failed to Seize The Initiative. Cypher left the Grav-Centurions to join Shrike and the First Assault Squad. Grav-Centurions moved 6 inches forward to get in range of the Tyrant and shot it, leaving the Tyrant with only 1 wound. My Dreadnought which had just dropped, finished the job with Multimelta shot to the back and wounded the Hive Crone with Heavy Flamer at the same time. Mission Accomplished! First Blood and Slay The Warlord belongs to my Raven Guard.

Assault Squad 2 moved forward and stop just outside the Mountain of Skulls. Snipers did nothing.

The death of the Tyrant almost has no effect on the Tyranid hordes. They advanced forward. Ravener brood 1 and fleeting Carnifexes destroyed the Grav-Centurions in a devastating assault. The 2nd Ravener brood advanced swiftly atop the Mountain of Skulls to assault my 2nd Assault Squad. The Assault Squad lost about 5 guys but managed to kill a Ravener.

Hive Guards and Zoanthropes failed miserably to harm the Dreadnought, succeeded only one glancing hit to the AV12 machine. So they now had to send the Tervigon to destroy it, which it did, but suffered one wound in the process.

Both Biovore's shots scattered, producing Spore Mines near the 2nd Assault Squad and Sniper unit 1. Hive Crone flew off the board to safely engage my Storm Raven if it turned up in the next turn.

2nd Turn

Storm Raven came in and targeted the Carnifex brood, caused 3 wounds, not enough to down even a single Fex. Sniper unit 1 followed up and took that last wound, leaving only one Fex. Cypher took down 2 wounds with his plasma pistols, and the unit caused another with bolt pistols. They later assaulted the Carnifex, killing it Raven Guard style, with Hammer of Wrath.

The fight between my 2nd Assault Squad and Ravener brood 2 continued. This time, it also ended with our lost but they held their ground.

First Sniper team took out the Spore Mines nearby. Drop Pod killed 7 Termagants with Deathwind Launcher.

Hive Crone entered from Ongoing Reserves and shot the Storm Raven with haywire missiles. It missed, even with rerolls! All 5 Hive Guards did the same, causing 2 penetrating hits. Lucky the result was only Crew Shaken. Phew! I would have lost my 10 man Tactical Squad if the Storm Raven crashed this turn.

Ravener brood 2 continued to kill more of my and 2nd Assault Marines, leaving only two guys left to fight. By this time, there's 4 Ravener still in the brood.

Ravener brood 1 assaulted, took 2 wounds from Cypher's overwatch, but easily closed the gap. They caused 7 unsaved wounds, which killed the Veteran Sargent and wounded Shrike once. One Ravener were killed in the fight. My marines passed their break test, but I decided to do Hit and Run 13 inches backwards to allow new tactical arrangement next turn.

Turn 3

Tactical Squad disembarked within Rapid Fire range to the Ravener brood 1. Cypher left the Shrike's team and joined the Tacticals. They shot the Raveners, killed 2. Sniper unit 1 followed through and killed another. Storm Raven skimmed 12 inches and Snap Fired, destroying the brood.

Shrike jumped over the Tacticals to support the fight against the 2nd Ravener brood. The assault was a success, killed 2 Raveners and reduced the other 2 to one wound each. RG lost only one guy from Assault Squad 2.

Manning the Quadgun, Sniper unit 2 wounded the Hive Crone and the thing suffered another wound when it fell to the ground. Drop Pod again targeted the Termagants, but this time scattered, caused 3 wounds but all was saved with 4+ cover from area terrain and +1 cover due to mysterious objective.

Biovores moved forward and shot towards the Tacticals. Despite major hit with large blast, none of the wounds caused got through the 3+ armour. The Hive Crone flew closer and spit a S5 flamer weapon, hitting 8 but killed only 1 marine. Very good armour saves on my part.

Hive Guard took this chance to take down the Storm Raven. First brood failed to go through the armour, but the second brood penetrated twice. Storm Raven downed.

Zoanthropes destroyed my Drop Pod with S10 lance. Shrike killed the last two Raveners. Spore Mines tried to assault my Snipers, but was destroyed with overwatch.

Tervigon gave birth to 13 Termagants. It rolled a double 6 in the process and lost that ability.

Turn 4

The Raven Guard did good so far, but there were still too many Nids on the table. I need to somehow take care of the enemy objective, and only the jumpacks had any chance to do anything. So despite having only 4 jumpacks left, I sent Shrike and both Assault Squads towards the enemy objective, coming from the other side of the Mountain of Skulls.

Cypher and Tactical squad moved to behind a stone ruin for cover against the Zoanthropes, spread out in anti-template formation,

Shrike and his team killed 2 Spore Mines nearby. Tacticals killed 2-3 Termagants at long range. Quadgun caused another wound to the Hive Crone, it fell down and died. But the best shooting was from the 1st Sniper Squad. They shot at the Tervigon, 4 hits causing 2 rending and 2 normal wounds. The Tervigon failed all saving throws against that and was left with one wound. Wow!

The Tyranids continued to advanced. Biovores began pounding S4 AP4 Large Blast on my back unit, aiming to deny me my objective. 3 Snipers died, but they passed their Pinning and Moral Check. Hive Guards targeted Shrike's team. But all that S8 shots killed only one guy.

Turn 5

Cypher and Tactical started to move backwards, but I rolled 1 & 2 for moving through difficult ground. They shot and killed some more Tarmagants. 2nd Sniper Squad destroyed a Hive Guard unit with Quadgun and Sniper rounds.

The 1st Sniper Squad finished the job they started earlier, killing the Tervigon with well placed sniper shots. That in effect killed some Termagants from both units that happened to be within 12 inches from it..

Shrike and the Assault Marines assaulted the Termagants holding the Tyranid objective. Only Shrike made it to combat and he single-handedly destroyed the whole brood of 13 Termagants. He suffered one wound. My gamble paid off, the Tyranids were denied their home objective.

In Tyranids turn, Biovore succesfully took out my Sniper unit 2, clearing my home objective. Zoanthropes moved back and casted S10 lance towards Shrike, but it was cancelled with Deny The Witch.

Termagants 2 assaulted Shrike but they were easily defeated by the Shadow Captain.

Turn 6
Cypher and the Tacticals moved as fast as they could towards the home objective. But failed short by a few inches. I need another turn.

The lone Veteran Sargent made it into combat, but failed to wound the Biovore. Shrike wiped out the remaining Termagants fighting him.

The Hive Guards killed 2 Snipers. Zoanthropes attempted to cast another S10 Lance towards Shrike, and again it was denied! The Veteran Sargent wounded the Biovore.

Turn 7

Cypher and his team reached the home objective and held their ground. Shrike assaulted the last Biovore, but it stayed alive with one wound. The other combatants striked the air.

Hive Guards shot at Cypher's team, killed 3 (!!) and forced a Morale Check. It was about 7-8 inches from the board, so I can't afford to have them fled of table. Rolled the dice.. and they passed.

With that the Tyranid player conceded.

Result :Raven Guard WON!Post Game Assessment :
That was my first experience against the new Tyranids. I kept reading all the bad things about them on the internet, but I don't think they are that bad. It was a bloody fight, one that I was lucky to win.

The Ravener broods are superbly good being a beast with rending. Without support from Shrike's team (thanks to Cypher's Hit and Run), one of the unit would probably had broken through my center and took out my Snipers.
The Carnifexes are scary, and fast too with fleet. My opponent did a mistake when he sent the Hive Crone off table. That allow the Storm Raven, Cypher and Snipers to focus on the big monsters. Things might have been different otherwise.

The Biovores are really dangerous against my Snipers. Need to be more careful the next time I see them across the table.

All in all, it was a really good and fun match. Thanks to my opponent for the game ...
... and thanks to you all for reading my batrep.